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The Fresno Pacific University Center for Community Transformation has been awarded a $1.179 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to launch an initiative aimed at supporting children’s faith development in local congregations.
The grant will fund Centrando Niños en Nuestras Congregaciones (Centering Children in our Congregations), a seven-part initiative designed to address the specific needs of Spanish-speaking, rural, and marginalized communities and churches. Key components of the program include a certificate program for Spanish-speaking congregations, faith literacy coaching, the creation of local groups to foster new ideas, mini-grants, a ministry implementation program and additional resources and tools.
“Our team is deeply moved and excited to lean into the work of this new initiative here at CCT,” said Carlos Huerta, Center for Community Transformation (CCT) executive director. “CCT’s heart to continue to invest into congregations, especially our rural and Spanish-speaking congregations in partnership with Lilly Endowment Inc., provides a significant investment in the health and vitality of children’s ministry programs in the Central Valley.”
Centrando Niños is part of Lilly Endowment’s national Nurturing Children Through Worship and Prayer Initiative program. The latest round of grants under this initiative was announced on Sept. 27.
Since its establishment in 2012, the Center for Community Transformation has focused on promoting community resilience and well-being in the Central Valley, advocating for change through partnerships with local leaders in education, business, church and nonprofit sectors.
Under Huerta’s leadership, the CCT has expanded programs in social entrepreneurship, financial literacy, ministry leadership training and soft-skills job training. The Caruthers native has helped build a social enterprise ecosystem at Fresno Pacific University that includes the Spark Tank pitch competition and the Launch Central Valley boot camp program.
The Center for Community Transformation is among 91 organizations funded in this grant round, representing a diverse array of Christian traditions, including Catholic, mainline Protestant, evangelical, Orthodox, Anabaptist, and Pentecostal communities. Many of these organizations have roots in Black Church and Hispanic and Asian American traditions.
